The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China

The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge or the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge in China has been officially named the world’s longest cross sea bridge exactly after it was finished and opened for public. The bridge measures 26.4 miles or approximately 42.6 km and links Qingdao city in China’s eastern Shandong province with the Huangdao district to save time in a busy traffic like the one from China.

It helps to cut the distance between the two points by 30 km and the time by over an hour. The bridge has 6 lanes and it’s almost three miles longer than the previous record holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. This major infrastructure project has been developed over the course of four years and its price went up to $8.6 billion.

The Qingdao Haiwan Bridge is made of over 450,000 tons of steel and it’s capable of withstanding a magnitude 8.0 earthquake. It’s built in the Jiaozhou river delta and, apart from being really useful, this bridge is also an architectural masterpiece and it will probably be a big tourist attraction and boost the area’s visitors.

The bridge will probably hold the record of the world’s longest sea bridge for a couple of years but officials from China have already announced that they started working on another bridge, linking the province of Guangdong with Hong Kong and Macao.

The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China was last modified: November 8th, 2012 by Mark V